Bridgeport tax increase trimmed down

Brian Lockhart

Updated 5:45 pm, Saturday, May 11, 2013

BRIDGEPORT -- Council members are banking on expensive "what-ifs" to help them trim Mayor Bill Finch's proposed $400 average tax hike down to what they consider a more palatable $123 increase for homeowners.

The council's budget committee on Saturday wrapped up five weeks of work, unanimously passing a 2013-14 spending plan that heads to the full 20-person legislative body Monday night for approval.

Finch proposed a $519.9 million budget that increased the 41.11 mill rate to 43.61 and taxes by $400.

The council's alternative reduces Finch's plan to $517.1 million with a mill rate of 41.85 and a $123 tax increase.

The mayor's budget was based on steep cuts to state aid in Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's 2013-14 budget.

The council is hoping around $7.5 million of that aid is restored. Their assumptions are based on a recent budget drafted by the Legislature's appropriations committee, as well as private meetings in Hartford with lawmakers.

"Understand there's an asterisk on every one of those dollars," said Councilwoman Susan Brannelly, D-130, a city budget committee co-chairwoman. "If things go sour, we've got to restore those funds."

Not built into the budget is an additional $3.3 million for city schools that state officials and Bridgeport's Board of Education have said the Finch administration is, by law, required to spend. The mayor's office is arguing otherwise.

The council plan assumes Finch will obtain $2 million in employee concessions, $400,000 more than he proposed.

Council President Tom McCarthy, D-133, who sat in on budget meetings, including Saturday's, said the changes were done in consultation with the mayor's office. The mayor and all 20 City Council members are Democrats. "We worked with the administration to get to a place we were all comfortable with," McCarthy said.

Unlike Finch, the council faces re-election in November, as angry taxpayers have reminded members at hearings.

In preparing the budget resolutions for Monday's full council meeting, some wanted to emphasize the positive.

"I would just say we're reducing taxes in this line," McCarthy urged the budget committee Saturday.

Martinez in April said she could not support a tax hike, but now says the council has no choice.

"We worked day and night looking item by item in a 500-page (budget)," she said. "We got everything we could."

Councilman Carlos Silva, D-136, who also voted for the tax hike Saturday, could change his mind Monday. "I'm not happy with the number. I wanted to get it to zero," Silva said.

Silva believes the council is at a disadvantage to truly challenge some of the data in the mayor's budget. "We found, I think, the obvious things," Silva said.

The council's budget eliminates around two dozen vacant positions, seven in road maintenance, even though the city faced stiff criticism for taking a week to plow the roads following February's blizzard.

The budget committee did not reverse Finch's plan to make Public Facilities Director Charlie Carroll, who for five years has also been part-time parks chief, full time parks director while hiring a new public facilities head.

Silva has questioned the need to create another full time title in City Hall during a tough budget year.

"We had a man doing a great job in two positions," he said.

There is speculation Carroll was reassigned because of February's blizzard. The mayor's office has said Finch wants Carroll to be able to focus on implementing Finch's master parks plan.